one of Ripley's Bad Guys:CSB: IFR training flight, we are picking up lots of ice in a 172 and running out of throttle - Seattle Center sez no descent to warmer altitude; instructor sez "oh yeah? watch us".

Sounds like a choice between a controlled descent and an uncontrolled one.

Nice try, blaming the pilot for not using his full call sign, but that gets thrown out the window pretty quick. The controller should fry. CFR 91.3 paragrapg B. In an emergency requiring immediate action, the Captain may deviate from any rule to the extent required to meet that emergency.

When there is smoke in the plane, using your full call sign gets put on the back burner.

Sounds like they are trying to pin some of the blame on the pilot as well, "Pilot did not announce himself properly" doesn't the radar show the aircraft and a unique id number they could cross reference?

manitobamadman:FTFA, "Prank calls to control towers are not that uncommon" um... why ?

Yeah, about that....

"Ha ha, let's call the tower and tell them the plane's been hijacked! Won't that be a riot!"or"Hey I know! Let's pretend the plane's on fire and get everyone out to the runway, and then when we land we'll go AHA! PUNKED!"

Charter flight doesn't want to get diverted from a busy airport where they have favourable facilities pricing. Said airport is really busy that day so they divert some of the aircraft to other airports.

This means more landing fees in places where you don't necessarily have deals.

Pilot tells the tower that he smells smoke. Tower says "Okay. Land." The mysterious smell of smoke is never found and blamed on dust getting caught in a fan motor or something.

cman:You gotta admit, that would be one hell of a fun hoax to do to air traffic controllers.

As a pilot, not at all. Pilots (and controllers) have to be able to believe each other. Where I learned to fly (KATW) we had excellent controllers. Part of the reason is that they worked hard with the students (who mess up radio calls, among the simple mistakes) along with the CFI's. If we couldn't trust each other, it would've been chaos.

Pranking controllers is dumb. Their job is hard enough without idiots jerking their chain. By the same token, controllers shouldn't prank pilots.

gaslight:Charter flight doesn't want to get diverted from a busy airport where they have favourable facilities pricing. Said airport is really busy that day so they divert some of the aircraft to other airports.

This means more landing fees in places where you don't necessarily have deals.

Pilot tells the tower that he smells smoke. Tower says "Okay. Land." The mysterious smell of smoke is never found and blamed on dust getting caught in a fan motor or something.

No, this has never been done before.

Then, let's address the problem in a different way than allowing controllers to decide "Meh, just a hoax" shall we? I'd rather err on the side of letting commuter jets get diverted than wait till a genuine emergency crashes because some controller figured the screams of terror were just really good actors on the radio.

Gyrfalcon:manitobamadman: FTFA, "Prank calls to control towers are not that uncommon" um... why ?

Yeah, about that....

"Ha ha, let's call the tower and tell them the plane's been hijacked! Won't that be a riot!"or"Hey I know! Let's pretend the plane's on fire and get everyone out to the runway, and then when we land we'll go AHA! PUNKED!"

I just don't see it.

You're either A) a teenager, in which case it is incredibly, INCREDIBLY stupid, but you may somehow be so immature as to actual think it's funny or B) an actual adult trolling air traffic control, in which case you should be drawn, quartered, burned at the stake, and have all your ashes shot from a canon.